


Sitting duck

by Hypatia_66



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Ducks, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 02:45:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19164223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hypatia_66/pseuds/Hypatia_66
Summary: LJ Short Affair challenge. Prompts: block, whitePursued into the wilderness, the two agents need to eat. Illya has the knack of finding food.





	Sitting duck

Ducks could be heard quacking amiably among themselves among the reeds on the edge of the lake, but they fell completely silent at the sound of an outboard motor and shouting. The two agents had no weapons and there was nowhere else to hide, but the lake. Illya walked into the water and, seal-like, swam underwater toward the reeds. Napoleon much against his inclination, and less seal-like, followed and came up gasping beside him. The reeds towered over them.

“Can we use them to breathe underwater?” whispered Napoleon, breaking one off.

Illya shook his head. “Myth,” he said quietly.

The water was cold. They couldn’t move because their pursuers had now beached the boat and were crunching the pebbles underfoot. The two men, hidden as they were, nevertheless lowered themselves as far as their noses. Illya became aware of motion in the water as a duck paddled its way through the reeds somewhere nearby: it too, had heard the crunch of pebbles. It stopped and lay quietly in the water. Now there was no way they could move or it would give them away.

It was undoubtedly irritation at losing their prey that led one of their pursuers to fire his gun wildly at everything he could see. The duck took off with a loud quacking, away from the firing, into the trees. Then the outboard motor started up again, and everything went quiet.

Napoleon and Illya rose silently and finding themselves alone, waded back to the shore and up to the wooden shack.

“Now what?” said Napoleon. “We’ll need to eat. There’s nothing here.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” said Illya and, still dripping wet, went out again leaving Napoleon to strip off and attempt to get dry.

<><> 

“How did you fool that bird into believing that your intentions were benign?” Napoleon inquired when Illya returned from his foray, with a duck – _the_ duck? – tucked under his arm.

“Force of personality.”

“And you’re going to kill it for us to eat?”

“Of course… unless you’re feeling sentimental enough to go without food for even longer?”

<><> 

There was a brief squawk from outside. Napoleon took his hands away from his eyes and, looking through the window, saw the bird hanging limply from his partner’s fist. Illya sat down on the block of wood that served as a makeshift seat outside the door and started plucking its feathers. The down lay thick in the grass around him but as the wind picked up, it became a whirling white blur. Like a snowstorm it blew around everywhere, landing in the bushes and in Illya’s wet hair and clothes.

He made ineffectual attempts to brush himself down before bringing the duck into the shack but the remaining tufts of white gave him the blurred outline of a bad photograph.

“You look like a yeti,” Napoleon remarked.

Illya snorted – and the feathers attached to his two-days’ growth of beard flew. He sneezed.

“What are you going to do with that unfortunate creature now, may I ask?”

“Draw it.”

“Draw it?”

“Eviscerate it,” Illya amended, “and then cook it.”

“Don’t birds need to hang, or something?”

“Napoleon, we don’t have time for the niceties of game cookery. I, for one, am starving.”

“I hope you’re not going to eviscerate it in here.”

Illya looked pityingly at him. “All right, I’ll do it outside. Do you want to learn how it’s done?” When Napoleon declined, he said, “Well, if you want to be useful fetch some water. I’ll need to wash the bird afterwards – and my hands.”

“You going to do this with your _bare hands_?”

“Napoleon… the intestines don’t come out by shaking it,” and grasping a knife in one hand, the bird in the other, Illya stalked out again.

<><> 

Napoleon, despite himself, watched from the doorway. Illya laid the duck over the block of wood outside and dragged another block over from the pile next to the shack and sat down to work. Feeling Napoleon’s eyes on him as he cut off the bird’s head and feet, Illya smiled to himself. That was the easy bit. Next, he opened the neck and hooked a finger in to tear the bird’s gizzard loose. That was slightly revolting for his observer, but when Illya cut off the tail and reached his fingers in to drag out the bird’s intestines, Napoleon retreated.

He eyed those bloody fingers when Illya came to the door to demand water, and brought the pail out to him. “I’ve found a rack. We could cook it on that – there’s some salt, but it’s a bit damp.”

“Excellent. I’ll cut it up then.”

They hung their clothes out to dry in the wind while the bird was cooking. It was a wild bird so, while there was less fat than on a shop-bought, farmed duck, there was enough to make the fire spit very fiercely at their bare skin. When Illya handed Napoleon an unidentifiable blackened portion, he took it gingerly and pulled off the skin before biting into it.

“Hm. It’s pretty tough,” he commented. “Tendons.”

“Be grateful you’re eating at all, Napoleon,” said his partner, licking his fingers. “But I saved its heart and liver. Want them instead? – they won’t be tough.”

“No thanks,” said Napoleon fastidiously.

It wasn’t a large bird so, though it involved a lot of effort to chew it, the meal was soon over. Pulling on still-damp clothes, Illya then collected up all the burnt skin and the bones and took them away to bury while Napoleon scattered the remains of the fire and cleaned the rack in the lake before restoring it to its proper place. Together they looked around to see that all was as it had been when they arrived. “All clear,” said Illya. “Let’s go.”

Looking out at the lake, Napoleon saw a solitary female duck apparently searching the reeds and quacking softly. He nudged his partner who looked, smiled ruefully and shrugged. “ _She_ didn’t respond to my personal charm,” he said, “females are less trusting.”

“You don’t say,” said Napoleon.

===============


End file.
